It wasn't so long ago there was significant resistance to open source
software in respectable computing circles. Government agencies in particular
were suspicious of anything developed outside the mainstream commercial
framework. "Freeware" -- as it once was called -- was considered
inherently suspect, untrustworthy, the product of wild-eyed hacker anarchy.

Apparently, times have changed.

Douglas Battenberg is an economist and Perl programmer at the Federal
Reserve Board of the United States. Founded by Congress in 1913, the "Fed"
maintains the stability of the national financial system and contains
systemic risks in domestic financial markets.

Battenberg works in the Quantitative Studies section of the Fed's Research
and Statistics division. His group is responsible for preparing model-based
macroeconomic forecasts for the U.S. economy. Much of his work is
concentrated on "FRB/US", a large-scale econometric model with extensive
simulation capabilities.

His effort supports the decision-making of top-level government
officials who define U.S. monetary and fiscal policy. For example,
model simulations and forecasts are routinely used by the
Board to gauge how major events, such as disruptions to foreign economies
or changes in fiscal policy, may affect U.S. growth and inflation, and
how monetary policy responses to such shocks might affect these outcomes.

That's a pretty heavy responsibility for any computing environment -- but
Perl seems to be up to it. When FRB/US migrated from the mainframe to UNIX
in 1987, Douglas' group was feeling around for tools to replace some of the
TSO-based UI functionality. One of his UNIX associates handed him the man
pages for Perl version 3.

It was the start of a beautiful relationship. As Battenberg recounts, "To make
a long story short, I read the pages and started writing Perl user front-ends
around the -- then mostly -- Fortran programs, and the rest is history. The
oldest Perl file I can find [on my filesystem] is time-stamped May 1989."

Perl eventually found other uses supporting -- as one would expect -- web CGIs
and other GUIs in the FRB/US environment. Perl also filled another familiar
role as connective tissue between system modules. Douglas explains, "We use a
number of estimation packages to generate our equations for FRB/US. Once the
equations are estimated, they must be coded into the language that we use for
simulation. We use Perl scripts to translate the various representations of
the equations into the simulation code and vice-versa."

For Battenberg, Perl's appeal is much the same as for the rest of the world
outside the ivory tower of government finance. "The main thing I like about
Perl is its rich and diverse syntax. I think it's a 'fun' language to use and I
like the fact that Perl promotes the artistic side of programming. Since I am
not a computer scientist by training, I have no particular theoretical axes to
grind on the technical aspects of Perl. I believe in using what works for you."

This seems to be more evidence that Perl -- one of the cornerstones of the open
source movement -- has outlived the old prejudices. The Fed's use of Perl to
support economic decision-making presents a compelling case for the tool's
value and trustworthiness.

So next time somebody tells you that open source software is for wild-eyed
hackers and hobbyists, tell them about Douglas Battenberg. For him, Perl is
just another facet of a satisfying career at the Federal Reserve Board. He
explains, "I'm still at the Board because the work continues to be
interesting, it's always changing, and the Board has been good about bringing
itself up to date in hardware and software." How times do change.